A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Players determine the actions of their characters based on their characterizations and/or game play. Actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise, their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

Simply put, RP is much like acting - except on paper.

You are the writer and creator of your character and choose how this character should live out the rest of their virtual life. To begin, many would suggest with the basic necessities (before you begin posting within the forums).

Basics such as:
-Name
-Age
-Physical Features: Height, Weight, Eye-Color, Hair Length & Color, Does he/she have a scar? Perhaps a tattoo? Maybe this character is missing a tooth…or even worse, a finger, arm or leg? Physical Features play a huge role in letting others know more about a person.

Quote:

Instead of: An Old Man
What you can write: His hair was shocking white and gleamed under the dim tavern lights as it hung long and unkempt upon his humped back. The skin upon his face was wrinkled and sagged around his neck. When he smiled, it revealed a row of crooked teeth, blackened with age and years of forgone brushing.

What drew my attention, however, was the eye that stared at me from the curtain of stingy hair. At one time, it had been a handsome eye - dark blue with specks of gold within them. Now it stared at me blindly, the years within the dark catacombs had formed a milky, veil-like substance over the blue orb and gone was the gold specks, replaced by grayish veins that spread outward from the pale iris.

(Note how I never used the words OLD man? Let the descriptions tell the readers of your characters age)

-Armour & Other Weapons: Does your character carry a sword name Fuzzy? Or perhaps the ‘Gnarled Staff of Many Faces’? Maybe this warrior walks around wearing a leather thong…or perhaps he stumbled about with the whiskey bottle as his constant companion. Either way, what your character wears and uses as a weapon (or shield), speaks volumes to the reader.

-Characteristics and other Quirks of Nature: You’ve described how your character looks like and what he/she wears…but who are they and how to they act? Is your character a friendly drunk? An angry vampire who’s been scorned by her male lover? Maybe this character has a condition that makes his left leg twitch every so often and he curses rainy days. Even better, he was the village idiot up who was scared of his own shadow and constantly drooling - but then one day he got struck by lightening and overnight, he became the town’s richest merchant…with his uncanny penchant for haggling and keeping track of numbers/figures.

Of course, these are all suggestions and there are many players who enjoy forming their characters as they write within the forums. Either way, it is up to you and your imagination alone!

God-Modding

When you are ready to write within the forums, you must realize that you are not writing alone. In an RP thread, there will be other players who are just as eager to write their own part of the story. When there are several players within one RP thread, you must be cautious NOT to God-Mod another player. God-Modding is considered a taboo in many forums boards and discouraged.

God Modding is when you let your character do practically anything without limits and boundaries. In your posts, you perform actions for other players (without their permission) and this is frowned-upon by many people. The absolute worst is when they make out another character to be what they're not, just to make their own character seem superior. They make others seem weak, screaming for help, when they've made it quite clear about their advantages and strengths. This is called power-play. Its a strain of God-Modding, but instead of just being irritating, it’s offensive to boot.

In other words, do not put words in other people’s mouths…

God Modding is:
-When you kill or injure a character without the other player's permission.
-When you don’t allow the other player to hit, dodge or avoid any of your attacks or items aimed at them.
-When you use other characters in your post without permission. In other words, if you do not RP as Legolas, then you cannot have Legolas say anything, or do anything, without the other player's express permission.

Here is an example of God-Modding:

Quote:

Player 1: Elsa stared at the Dark Knight with fearful eyes. She knew he was going to kill her.

Player 2: Leon was always known for his quickness. Without a word, he drew his sword and slashed Elsa to death. His laughter filled the air when he heard her curdling scream and saw the blood pour out from her wound.

This is God-Modding.

Leon had made Elsa scream AND stabbed her to death without her permission! As a new writer, you'll have to pay attention NOT to perform OTHER people's actions for them.

What shall Leon do then (you might ask)? Here is a example of what Leon could have done:

Quote:

Player 1: Elsa stared at the Dark Knight with fearful eyes. She knew he was going to kill her.

Player 2: Leon was always known for his quickness. Without a word, he drew his sword and rushed towards the women, his foot practically flying across the arena. The blade of his ’Death Sword’ sung in the air as Leon lifted it over his head and swung heavily down towards Elsa’s side.

Player 1: She had seen him coming and tried to escape, but he was much to fast for her. Her face was fearful and she thought she could see his eyes just seconds before she felt the sharp bite of his sword upon her side. The world exploded into a red frenzy of pain and she screamed. Then Elsa slumped onto the ground, the blood pouring from her wound.

OR MAYBE Elsa was able to thwart the demon-fast Leon and live to see another day. Either way, Elsa was given a choice and a chance to respond to Leon’s post. Just remember to respect the other players within an RP thread…and they will do the same for your character.

Even if it is a fantasy game, there should be limits to your character. Many players base their characters loosely upon the game play. Remember not to abuse power. Even if you are a powerful sorceress who (just so happens) to know every single spell there is in the entire virtual world - you do not have unlimited mana. If you are thrown in battle, it is highly unlikely your sorceress can keep casting powerful spells without feeling drained or weary.

Even Hercules had his down-fall.

So don’t always try to be the invincible hero. Despite being a fantasy, there are limitations when you are RPing your character with other players.

Rules & Terminology:
-OOC = Out of Character
-IC = In Character
-ORP = Open Role Play
-CRP = Strictly in Character Role Play
-NPC = Non-Player Character (For example: My main game character is Qtchi, but I have RP'd side-characters in my story, such as the generic barmaid who serves Qtchi in Dragon Tavern.)
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- In Role-Playing, spamming or God-Modding is not allowed. Players who ignore this rule will be kindly asked to leave and an admin will delete their posts.
-OOC (Out of Character) comments should be kept in OOC threads or to a bare minimum within stories. Please use (parenthesis) or [brackets] around OOC comments so other players can decipher the difference. For example:

Quote:

Mary had just finished polishing her blade when she heard a noise. Looking up, she realized t‘was just her husband returning from his latest hunt.

”How was your day dear?” She asked, ”Did you manage to catch anything?”

(OOC: Don’t forget there are no rabbits in the ‘Highland Mountains’ Dave! And, Kathy, when will your charc return from her quest?)

ROLE PLAYING GUIDE: Writing out thoughts versus speech within a post

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When writing your first Role-Playing (RP) post, many writers are confused in how they can distinguish their characters thoughts versus speech.

One way, is to utilize italicize for thoughts and bolden your speech. Sometimes color can also be used, to help give your character more personality. Below, I have included two examples of how you can write with italicized font, bold font and/or color.

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Quote:

Example of a post using italicizing for thoughts and bold for speech:

I am the moment. Nothing exists outside of this moment, The voice echoed within the her mind as Evie Zoarossum stood facing the demon before her.

Madness howled around her - grotesque contorted faces out of hell threw themselves at her, and the walls around the room were gone, while the floor of what was once the palace sank and reformed below her feet.

Her movement was swift and silent, as the girl brought her wand beside her face. The crystal ball glowed steadily, the light casting a blue aura upon her determined face.

"Achi To TAEM!" The girl shouted, releasing the power from her body in full force. It roared to life, exploding in a dazzling display of lights... straight towards the demon.

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Quote:

Example of a post using color and how that will influence a way a reader perceives your character:

"Ow that hurt!" Sephrenne whined, her pretty lips turned down in a pout as she rubbed her arm. It was late afternoon and the sun bore down upon the two figures, standing in the middle of the courtyard.

The women was dressed in a light woolen tunic, the creamy top was complete with vintage lacing and puffed shoulders. Upon her legs, she wore brown suede riding pants, the soft material tucked in a pair of expensive leather boots, crafted from fine Italian leather.

Beside the women, a man stood tall.

He appeared to be slightly older, the sun glinting off his reddish-brown hair and dark, blue eyes. Above the pair of eyes, was his brow, which was currently furrowed as the man regarded the woman with much displeasure.

"We haven't got all day Seph, you either take training seriously or you will never be ready, Richard Graves sighed, lowering the wooden practice stave towards the ground.

"But I'm tired," She said, sinking down onto the wooden chair by the edge of the courtyard. "And my hands hurt!" She lamented, raising said hands into the air and staring at her nails with utter dismay.

Richard gnashed his teeth in frustration, wishing he could smack the spoiled princess with the end of his stave.

"Captain!" A voice suddenly rang out into the clearing and a short man presently came running up to Richard. "Sir, I am one of the hunters scouting the Dark Forest - come quickly! Something has happened..."

ROLE PLAYING GUIDE: Proper Spacing & Post Indentation

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When writing your first Role-Playing (RP) post, many writers forget the aesthetic importance of their written words. In a world of technology, where incorrect spelling and general grammatical mistakes are automatically corrected by Microsoft Word - all that is left for the writers to do... is write.

Little do writers realize, having an ugly post will also detract from the written value of their words. Below I will demonstrate the importance of proper spacing and indentation within a written post.

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Quote:

Here, I show how poor indentation ruins a good post/story:

"My lord---" Shock broke through Lhian's features. "You should not be here!"
"No... I should not. This is very true..." He gazed around himself. "Oh my warriors! See how still they lie... Why am I living? I fought hard... Why must they pay the sacrifices of another man's folly?"
The woman said nothing as she regarded the blood-stained warrior. He paced before her, most of his clothing torn away and his face etched in grief. In his arms he held the body of a warrior...

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Quote:

That was pretty hard to read right? Now, let me take that same exact post and fix it up with some color and proper indentation/spacing:

"My lord---" Shock broke through Lhian's features. "You should not be here!"

"No... I should not. This is very true..." He gazed around himself. "Oh my warriors! See how still they lie... Why am I living? I fought hard... Why must they pay the sacrifices of another man's folly?"

The woman said nothing as she regarded the blood-stained warrior. He paced before her, most of his clothing torn away and his face etched in grief. In his arms he held the body of a warrior...

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See the huge difference in just making sure you put in the proper spaces and indentation within one post? The story flows better and the readers get a better sense of the characters.

So the next time you are writing a story, please double-check your 'Enter' keys and 'Space' bars!

Very well written in a way most people (specially rookies to RPing) will be able to understand

__________________
Playing as Dresalk Clothscream, Baltron Cragslammer & Aingus ScornthistleThou knowest not, that which thou dost
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Be awarned, least THEY appear
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To take thee to account, for thou current deeds

Good point!
OOC means 'Out of Character'. I have added an Terminology section to the guide. Thank you for pointing it out!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edik

-I can't imagine myself dedicating to RP

That is why I wanted to create a guide - so that more people can understand it and join us on the boards...
I think you would do wonderful Edik!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wyeel

Very thorough!
Those who read this should not have a reason to break any of those rules... =P

Thanks Wyeel - I read their existing rules and almost died. They had really terrible rules like:

Quote:

When alternating between thoughts and speach, use ^.

Consequently, everyone was posting with ^ ^ instead of "quotation marks" >.<!!!
Then they also had:

Quote:

Posts cannot be more then a paragraph long. No page long posts. Give people a chance to catch up

I literally went >.<!!! then deleted 50% of my post after I read that. People can't catch up if I have a post longer then 8 sentences?!

Then they had:

Quote:

...cannot introduce new situation or random battles in a thread..

Again, I had to re-edit my post again! My initial post was being chased into their thread by a demon...but that was against their forum rules....HA! Just made no sense....So I had to do something! LOL!

Thanks for reading DarkVisor! I hope to see more RPs from you in the future too!

Great read and I found it realy easy to understand, I haven been Rping for that long and some of this helped me as well, a few of the people I have been Rping with on other forums, ( yes I know D.T is one of the best) insist on you godmodding them if they are unable to post, or in the case of one, you driving their car and have them shooting at zombies.

I found this a good way to progress the story but at the same time it takes the whole point of Rping out of the posts, you are suppposed to be in charge of your own character so you know what he/she is like and what they would do or say, but when it comes to writing for somebody else how are you supposed to capture the other persons characteristics.

__________________Do not pity the weak, they are undeserving,
Those with power that abuse it will also feel my wrath,
I care not for what is right or wrong only that which is profitable.
Xbox live gamertag Dbd Havok.

God-Modding is when you post without permission though. Once permission is given, it's merely a new writer's take on what was your character - granted, it might be a terrible interpretation, but hardly a faux pau.

I still remember, quite fondly, how my IG friend Sathar ranted me out on msn when I posted my very first RP. To this day, I still blush terribly when I remember how he yelled at me for God-Modding.